When the military wants a project but doesn't want to look like they want it, the Energy Department is the place from which the government funnels the cash.
They even state in the article that there is biological warfare potential here. Of course there's also medicinal value - imagine an anti-virus virus that infects you and delivers an innoculation against a real disease. But before we get all lovey with this tech lets remember the lessons we learned from "Jurassic Park" - things will go wrong.
(Hey if you want a less pop-culture reference, look at the Manhattan project. Did you know that when they did the first test of a nuclear bomb they thought there was a small chance that the thing would start a chain reaction in the earth's atmosphere, burning the whole planet and killing all life? But they did it anyway. Good thing that didn't go wrong, but they also didn't know about how nasty radiation is and the long term affects it has - and i'm not talking about super-powered mutants here!)
"The decision eliminates the establishment of a technical committee to assess Microsoft's compliance with the agreement. In its place, a corporate compliance committee -- consisting of Microsoft board members -- will make sure Microsoft lives up to the deal, the judge said."
Oh. My. God. No one in their right mind would agree to this settlement. Apparently CKK is taking the standard Bush policy of putting the foxes in charge of guarding the henhouse to a new low. (SEC: Harvey Pitt. EPA: Christine Whitman. Microsoft: Microsoft.)
I suspect that you and i agree substantially, but we're getting some miscommunication.
What are you advocating? Are you saying we shouldn't use our computers as multuimedia devices - that we shouldn't download and play music and movies on them? Or are you saying we should boycott the cable companies and use other services to do what we want?
If you're saying the former, then i must disagree. Why should we be content to submit to de facto limitation of our rights to discourage unfair pricing? The answer is not to simply limit your computer use - after all that's what they really want - the pricing crap is just one way they're trying to do it. (PS - I'm sure that the RIAA, MPAA, and all their friends who make licensed media playing devices would slaveringly agree that we shouldn't be using computers to play music and movies - we should buy separate expensive gadgets to do everything.)
If you're saying the latter, then i agree wholeheartedly. (The point i was making in my last post was that we should be able to boycott price-gougers without giving up broadband entirely, which is where the monopoly troubles pop up.)
There should be a competitive market for broadband service, but the FCC's designation of cable modems (etc.) as information services rather than communication services allows cable companies to set up a monopoly in areas where DSL is not available. (And btw, the cable companies' monopoly artificially inflates DSL rates as well.)
By all means - if you have other options, use them. But let's not shut people out of the internet just because they are on the short end of the FCC's ruling.
Don't be content to demonize the cable companies and stop there. Follow the trail back to the real source of the problem and do something about it. The FCC is controlled by people who care more about big business then they do about consumers. Use your vote to change that. Vote for the candidates that care more about your rights than they do about the money the cable companies throw at them. (I have definite opinions on which parties those candidates tend to come from, but i'm sure you can make up your own mind on that.)
You can stop this by killing the market: Cancel your cable TV subscription. Don't download or play music on your PC. Play DVD's with you TV. You know the drill.
So we should prevent them from overcharging us for broadband by not using our computers? They want to stop us from sharing files, so the answer is to not share files? Huh?
I agree that market pressure is the answer, but i think you need to go into a little more detail with your idea.
The real solution would be to allow a free market to sort it out, but since the FCC just handed the cable companies monopoly rights, that won't happen. Face it - this administration loves the big buck$ they get from big bu$ine$$. That's what guides nearly every decision they make. The group of people that's most likely to pay very public and melodramatic lip-service to patriotism and freedom sells our rights to the highest bidder every day.
As far as i can tell, this special paper requirement really only exists to force you to give more money to them every time you need more paper.
In essence, the paper creates an absolute "geographical" reference point for all your writing. This imaginary space is roughly the size of Europe and Asia. That's pretty big, but it is not limitless, so not only do you have to continue buying more "proprietary paper", you will eventually have to upgrade your whole pen system. Gee, i wonder if that upgrade will be free?
This whole concept is so surrealistically Rube Goldberg-ish i can hardly comprehend it. (BTW, "rube" is a synonym for "fool".)
Perhaps if they put some effort into writing coherent and interesting stories and getting good performances out of the actors then people wouldn't mind spending a few bucks to see the film. Hire real writers. Hire real directors.
LotR did it right, Episode 2 did not. People went to see LotR again and again. People went to see Episode 2 once and then told all their friends who hadn't yet seen it to wait for it on DVD. (So i guess you could say that DVD rentals are a factor - if you're a dumbass!)
They can try to blame piracy and DVDs and anything else, but the real blame is on Lucas himself and the crowd of yes-men with which he surrounds himself.
"Or giving people on the street floppies with DeCSS "
Genius. This should be the geek activist anti-DMCA activity.
(Step 0: Educate yourself. If they're laughing at you then they're probably not listening to you.)
Step 1: Copy up a fat stack of floppies.
Step 2: Copy up a fat stack of flyers with the relevent portion of the DMCA and your favorite anti-DMCA essay. (If step 1 is too money or time-intensive for you then just put the DeCss code on the flyer - it's just as illegal.)
Step 3: (And this is crucial.) Call the local police and tell them when where what and why.
Step 4: Call the media and tell them when and where. (If you tell them what and why they won't care - it's not sexy news.)
Setp 5: Go do it. Hand out floppies and flyers. Make a show of it. Be loud and obvious but not rude or disruptive, and certainly not violent. (Don't give them any excuse to put you in jail for any reason other than violating the DMCA.)
If you want to have a group of people do this check to see if you need a permit and get it. If people try to side-track you with other issues just say, "Yes, there are a lot of problems in the world, but this is the one I'm talking about today."
It's easy to forget that a post on Slashdot is not read by 99.9999% of the people who would get some benefit from reading it. Stop preaching to the choir.
I plan on writing a letter to my State Attorney General encouraging him to pursue criminal fraud charges against Kazaa's parent company. I encourage everyone else to do the same.
To quote the previous poster, "Wa wa wawa wawawa wawa Wa Wawawa, wa wawa wawa WAWA wa wa wawa wawa. Wa wawawa wa Wa wa wa wa wawawawa wa *wawa*. Wa wa wa wawa wa wa wa wa wa wawa, wa wawawa wa wawa wa wa wawawa wawa wa wa wawa wa Wawa-wa, wawa wa Wawa wa wa.";) Thanks, but reading about someone in the book i'm reading, who represents me reading the book is just not something i'd dig even if Tolkien did intend it that way. Tolkien told a great story but was not a great storyteller. Tom is lame - i'm glad he wasn't in the movie.
Ah - so you do have more time for these games. Great!
Wait a minute. You just said that there were judges that already expressed agreement with your position. Now you are saying this matter has not been decided in a court. Which is it?
Here is where i start doubting your mental acuity again. I said that it had not been addressed by a court that was capable of setting precedent. Until a case has been appealed to a higher court (eg appellate, or supreme court) it has no binding effect. Two local judges can decide similar cases in completely opposite ways before precedent is set, but once a higher court sets a precedent, then lower courts are expected to abide by it. You're either giving evidence of your ignorance or you're intentionally misinterpreting my statements, so which is it: are you dumb or dishonest?
The chances that you are my intellectual equal or superior are, statistically speaking, quite small.
Is that what it says on your Mensa card? To quote you: "That's just another unsubstantiated claim by you." So far, your astounding intellect has enabled you to: use a search engine, copy and paste, cling dogmatically to refuted claims, apply a separate standard to yourself than to your opponent, and to willfully and/or ignorantly misinterpret statements. Tell me again about how smart you is? What are those statistics that are so small? Oh wait - you're still in high school, aren't you? You still believe those standardized test scores mean something, don't you?
You don't seem to understand the difference between civil suits and criminal trials. The statute that I cited makes it a crime to split off cable signals without paying for them. How would the court trying you for a violation of federal law make the cable company guilty of fraud?
Right. When the cable company says, "You've been receiving these signals for the past 6 months, start paying or else," then that's attempted fraud. When they report you to the police for theft of cable in this situation (the police don't go looking for this on their own) then they are attempting to coerce you into paying for a service that they knowingly and willingly provided for free. They know that, in most cases, the consumer cannot afford to fight the fraudulent claim in court, so they use that to bully the subscriber into paying. You want an example or two?
I do understand the difference between civil and criminal cases - apparently better than you do. If these were civil complaints then it wouldn't be worth the cable companies' time and money, but since it's a criminal offense they can get the taxpayers to foot the bill for their dirty work and they can blame it on the overzealous DA/Police if they end up losing and/or catching some PR flak.
You said it was legal. I provided a statute that said otherwise. You provided your untrained, lay-person's opinion. I win. That's how such debates work.
Statute combines with judicial review to make law. Without the review all you have is a contested statute.
But if i'd only known you had declared yourself the victor i would've given up! My untrained, lay person's opinion that is based upon direct experience does trump your untrained lay-person's opinion that is based on your need to get in the final word regardless of the arguments. Sorry - you don't get to make the rules here, but hey there lil' buckaroo you're still a winner so long as you keep that positive attitude!
A "signal" and a "service", as applied to cable TV, are not the same and when you turn the former into the latter without permission, it is theft. It doesn't matter if you steal cable TV by using a splitter to get basic cable or a hacked converter box to get premium channels.
And aside from the fact that this distinction between service and signal are convenient for your argument, which bodily orifice was your source for this? The signal is the service. You cannot have one without the other. From the "definitions" section of your beloved telecom act: "the term 'cable service' means - (A)the one-way transmission to subscribers of
(i)video programming, or
(ii)other programming service, and (B)subscriber interaction, if any, which is required for the selection or use of such video programming or other programming service." So what is being transmitted if it is not a signal?
But there is a big difference between a hacked converter and a splitter, as anyone with experience will tell you. The cable companies would love to go back to the good old days when they could multiply your monthly bill by the number of splitters you had, but they can't.
Maybe you should be when you don't even understand the words you are using (i.e., "receiving")
I was willing to give you this one, but since you keep harping on it... Refer back to the document's definitions section and you'll see that the term 'receive' isn't in there. If someone went before a judge with this then the definition of receive that was used - the common one (successful conveyance from point a to point b) or the more specific one (decoding into meaningful info) - would be a point of contention. So stop patting yourself on the back for your ability to use a dictionary - it's not going to slam dunk the case should it ever come up in court.
I went one step further. I called the Federal Communications Commission after my last message and was told, in no uncertain terms, that splitting off cable signals from a broadband connection in order to get basic cable at no cost was illegal. If you doubt me, call them yourself.
Good idea. What number did you call? With whom did you speak? (Are you sure it wasn't the janitor?) What was the exact wording of the question(s) you asked? (In short - yes i do doubt you.)
Want more? Here is a document [state.ma.us] from the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications & Energy which clearly supports my position and refutes yours.
That document only tangentially pertains the situations we are discussing and is not a statute or other document that is actable by law. It is merely an arbitrary rephrasing of federal law with no identifiable source or responsible authority. On top of that, it is only applicable to Massachusets, and is a brazen copy of the propaganda put out by the cable companies themselves. Summary: Some unknown state employee (was it the Attorney General or Joe Blow, the summer intern?) copied the scare-tactic propaganda put out by the cable companies to serve their own interests.
So I have now provided a clearly worded statute, the FCC's interpretation of the legality of splitting off basic cable from a broadband link, and a document from the state of Massachusetts that explains, in laymen's terms, what I've been trying to tell you all along. All that you have provided is your opinion and (mis)interpretation of the law. If you can't do better than that, let's just drop this now.
So you have now provided an (untested) statute, an unverified claim of FCC contact, and an irrelevant document. I've given you a cogent argument that you have failed to refute with direct evidence. It may be an opinion but it's of no lesser significance than your own and is based upon direct experience which you lack. There's no harm in either of us sticking with our opinions, but you're not going to convince me that you're right without real evidence - court case citations, judicial opinions, etc.
Feel free to drop it at any time. You did say you had better things to do, right? So go do them. Your feeling of moral and intellectual superiority should be enough to sustain you. Surely this isn't a matter of ego and one-upsmanship for you, right? It's not really about who gets the last word, right?
You claim that it is illegal because there is a law on the books which could be interpreted to allow you to be prosecuted for putting a splitter in your home.
I am claiming that this law is contrary to precedent and other applicable laws and is therefore inapplicable in this instance. Judges' interpretations of the law do vary, and some of them agree that it is the cable companies' responsibility to block the signals, while others may claim that consumers should refrain from using the signal which is already being piped into their home.
Until it gets taken to a court that can provide precedent, it will remain as written - an ambiguous statute. FYI: Judicial review doesn't just obliterate laws - it's not always an on/off switch - they provide guidelines for interpretation. If a court of precedent says that their failure to trap out the signal is tantamount to authorization then the law still stands as written - it's just interpreted less broadly. (Would it help you get it if i used smaller words?)
Fraud? You contracted to get broadband Internet connectivity. You added a splitter and cable to their system to get TV without paying for it. Just how are you being defrauded?
You're not - until they ask you to pay for (or take you to court over) a service they gave you for free. It's impossible to steal something that was delivered into your home even though you didn't request it.
The cable company can block out the tv signal. If they fail to do so then they have no right to demand payment or damages.
That's like claiming that the electric company has provided you with an "unsolicited service" because you split off a power cable (to steal electricity) before it entered your electric meter.
That is such a poor analogy that it actually makes you sound like you have even less grasp of the topic. In hooking up a tv to a cable line, you are splitting the signal after it has come through the "meter". The cable company knows exactly what is coming in to your house - as long as it doesn't affect others they have no right to tell you what to do with it, just like the electric company cannot tell you what you can or cannot plug into the outlets in your house.
All you know is what they chose to prosecute.
And all you know is what you choose to blindly cling to. I know what they chose to prosecute and i know why. My opinion is based upon direct experience with the companies and systems involved.
You don't even know of a single case where your opinion was backed-up. You haven't provided any supporting evidence beyond the statute itself, which we have already agreed is open to interpretation.
I have no more time for your semantics games
I'm not the one whipping out the dictionary, but i doubt that you have anything better to do than argue semantics when you're talking out of your ass on a subject where you have neither experience nor evidence.
By the wording of this statute, the cable installers are guilty if they fail to put filters on. They have assisted in the receiving of an unauthorized communications service offered over a cable system - unless of course as representatives of the cable operator they are thereby authorizing you to view those channels! For that matter, anyone with a cable modem and no cable tv service is automatically guilty. They are receiving the signal even if they do nothing with it!
You say it's illegal because this law says so. I tell you that it's legal because of precedent, property law, and anti-fraud statutes. You and i (great legal scholars that we are) can argue until we're dead, but that won't do anything except provide amusement for us. Hey - since you like quoting the statutes: TITLE 47, CHAPTER 5, SUBCHAPTER V-A, Part IV, Sec. 558. Nothing in this subchapter shall be deemed to affect the criminal or civil liability of cable programmers or cable operators pursuant to the Federal, State, or local law of libel, slander, obscenity, incitement, invasions of privacy, false or misleading advertising, or other similar laws, except that cable operators shall not incur any such liability for any program carried on any channel designated for public, educational, governmental use or on any other channel obtained under section 532 of this title or under similar arrangements unless the program involves obscene material. Translation: This statute doesn't let them get away with anything that normal businesses can't get away with - like charging for unsolicited service!
You said "Tell that to the judge" and that's exactly what has to happen. Noone has been willing to put this statute to the test for cases like these, so the overly-broad law that really doesn't apply to the situation at hand is still on the books. One judge throws out the cable companies' claims and the other summarily says guilty, but noone is appealing this to the level where precedent gets set and real decisions are made because it's not worth the money it would cost to fight it for any of the parties involved.
Disagree all you want, but trying to hide behind a long copy-and-paste is bullshit. I do know what the cable company i worked for could or could not pursue as cable theft. You say there are documented court cases where it's been established that the cable company can tell me what to do with the wiring inside my house? Prove it. Cite one - link to one reference. I've searched for them and i can't find any. Who's bullshitting now? Again i ask what your qualifications are for the opinion you've offered.
It's their cable system and you don't have a legal right to add splitters and cables to it so that you can get TV signals that you don't pay for.
It's their system until it enters my house. Once it's inside, i can do whatever i want with it. I worked for the cable company and shut off cable theft on a daily basis - i know the distinction for fact. If i make no modifications outside my home i can do whatever i want unless my tampering involves stolen property or causes signal leakage that could interfere with airline radio frequencies (the fcc and faa mandate that).
History lesson: When cable tv first appeared, the cable companies would charge you a monthly fee for each tv in your house that had cable service. They would also prosecute people who added their own splitters, etc. Numerous court cases were decided in favor of the customer, establishing their ownership and discretionary use of the internal wiring of their house. The cable companies were forced to stop charging per set and the basic price was increased to account for this. Cable companies now charge to activate an outlet if they actually come in and wire it up, but not a monthly usage fee per outlet.
The cable company did not send you an unsolicited product. You tapped into their cable and stole it.
Tapping in to their cable would involve opening up their pedestal or climbing up the pole and attaching my own line to their feed. That would be theft, but they have no more right to tell you what to do with the coaxial cables inside your house than your neighbor has asking you to not enjoy the scents his flowers produce when they waft in through your window. They control what signal comes to you. They dropped a line from the main feed down to your residence. If they want to block out the tv signal on that line then they can. If they choose not to then it's an unsolicited product.
When the cable guy left after installing your cable modem, did you magically have basic cable on your TV? No. You hooked up additional splitters and/or cables in order to steal the signal.
Tinkering with the wiring in my house is my right, so long as it does not endanger others. My house, my wiring, my splitter, my tv, my right. This has been established by precedent and is a trivial conclusion in our system of property law.
Ethical and legal problems are different. Legally, it is theft. Ask any competent attorney and he'll verify that.
If you can adequately explain to him the concept of ethics, then he will agree that law and ethics are different - and he'll be glad he only has to deal with the legal side.;)
The competent attorney will, however tell you that legally, what you do with the wiring in your house is up to you. (Competence is not measured by the degree to which a person does or does not agree with you unless you happen to be right. I speak from direct experience with the inner workings of a cable company, who have a vested interest in knowing and briefing their employees on what is and is not cable theft - what is the basis for your opinion?)
... If you answered yes to any of the above, your theft of the cable service is depriving someone of income. To me, that's an ethical problem.
You are correct about the ethical questions, but assuming you were happy with your tv reception before and were not considering making any changes, using the cable signal provided causes neither ethical nor legal concern.
If you are using the free cable as a substitute for other services, then you are depriving others of income and you do have an ethical obligation. You should pay for and use whatever service you would otherwise want.
The cable company also has an obligation. They should filter out the cable tv signals so that unscrupulous individuals don't deny others of business. But they don't always do that - here's why:
1) Cable guy installs modem and leaves off the filters for the tv, providing free basic cable tv. 2) Cable customer service rep calls a few days/weeks later and offers free or deeply discounted trial of premium services, knowing that the customer is already getting the free services. 3) When the trial period is up, either the customer keeps all/some of the services or cancels them assuming he'll get the same service he started with. 4) If they're cancelled then the tech comes out and puts all the filters on, depriving the customer of the free service. 5) Often this prompts the customer to sign up for the previously free services.
Now the cable company has probably signed up a customer for more paid services, but at the very least they have deprived a competitor of a few months' revenue. It costs the company nothing to provide the free cable tv along with the modem service, so if it prevents a competitor from making a buck, it's worth it to them! (Note that it actually costs less to provide the free service than to block it out - filters have a price.)
Who's screwing who is not always as it appears at first.
BZFlag!!! It's a free, low-violence fps-style tank game with strategy!
Wrong. Using unsolicited service is not theft.
on
What Free Cable?
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· Score: 2
Legally and ethically, you have no obligation to not hook up your tv if you subscribe only to cable modem service. (Note that none of this applies to digital services.)
If a con man sends me an unsolicited product i am not required to pay for it or give it back. This is the same thing.
You asked for cable modem service and got cable tv service delivered on top of it. The signal is already coming to your house, so it is essentially wasted if it does not go to your tv. If you are paying for everything you asked for and are not depriving anyone else of service, or quality of service, where's the ethical problem? (If they say your splitter affects others' service, then they're lying.)
If they weant the $2 (my local cost) that they charge for basic cable on top of modem service then they can block out the tv channel at the tap until you subscribe. If they choose not to, that's their problem.
IUTBACG (i used to be a cable guy) so believe me when i tell you that all the crap in the article about tap audits(1) and degrading your service through splitters(2) is crap.
(1) A tap audit looks at the place where your individual line is connected to the main feed and maybe at the place where the line enters the house. If some joker pried open the box or climbed the pole and spliced-in his own line, removed some channel-blocking traps, or added some black-market channel-adding traps they can tell. They cannot (legally) tell how many splitters you have in your basement, nor is it any of their business. After the signal is in your house, you can do whatever you want with it (copyright restriction, etc. taken into account) - hook it up to one and only one tv, split it a milion ways, or leave it dangling unconnected if you want to! That's been decided in court and that's why they can charge you for installing new outlets, but not for service to multiple TV sets. Oh, and BTW tap audits are pretty rare unless they've previosuly caught you or one of your neighbors being naughty, but YMMV.
(2)If a two-way splitter would degrade your service to an unacceptable level then it was probably already intermittantly shitty. (But don't get me started on morons who want to have crystal-clear reception on 6 TVs with a $2 splitter from Radio Shack - there is a limit to how much you can split a signal. The cable company is not responsible for fixing your mess - just their own.) It is unlikely that your modem would work fine before you put the splitter in and not work afterwards, but if that's the case then that's your problem. Still, there's no harm nor foul in testing it out.
Slashdot the site by making the link out of the "nude doctored photos" part of the text. I wonder if MS submitted the story that way to ensure that no one who doesn't already hate MS sees the site?
I can't figure out if the desire to trash MS will win out over the anti-DMCA urge. It'll be interesting to see which way the knee-jerks go with this one.
Use the brain that theoretically sits inside your head.
Parse it out. In the sentence, Quake comes before BZ and checkers comes before chess. Ergo Quake = Checkers, BZ = Chess.
In the analogy itself i'm using both style and complexity. Solid Gold Checkers (Quake) is impressive looking and can be fun to play, but while a simple chess set (BZ) may not be a whiz-bang design (Zen perfection aside), the actual game has more depth.
I agree for the most part, but without jumping BZ loses a lot of strategy and skill.
3 shots with jumping on makes for great play. The good players learn fast that jumping should only be used for positioning or as a last resort. The first two shots are really just feelers - will they jump or dodge? If they jump then you own them with a well-timed 3rd shot. If they dodge then the fun really begins - try and hit them with the 3rd or save it in case they come for you?
Plus there's the thrill of a well-executed turning jump that saves your bacon and puts you right in line for a shot (it's a sweet, sweet thing), not to mention the dramatic dog-fight when two tanks go head-to-head, each jumping and turning in the air like Neo and Elrond as they pass.
Without jumping the game's a pretty conventional tank game with mediocre graphics. With jumping, good and bad flags, and limited shots you can enjoy a 1-on-1 game as much as a free-for-all.
(IMO Quake is good for action, but comparing it to BZ is like comparing solid gold checkers to an old wooden chess set.)
The analysis of Cloaking is missing one crucial bit of info: cloaked tanks are immune to Lasers. (Makes perfect sense, but most developers would've missed that.)
Cloaking is of limited use otherwise - skilled players use the radar at least as much as the viewscreen, if not more.
BTW, my favorite config: all good flags, all bad flags (15 seconds or 1 kill), 3 shots, jumping. (The fewer shots you have the more the strategery of the game shines through. BZ can't compare to Quake for adrenaline-pumping click-festiness, but the cat and mouse of stealth vs. gm can't be matched by Quake.)
When you've got 5 friends teamed-up against you and you just need a few more kills to get your score to 100: 5000 Grudes. (+1000 more if they're in the same computer lab and you can taunt them while you frag them.) When you've logged on to a server and you watch time after time as your bullets pass right through the other tank(s) due to lag or hacked clients: -2000 Grudes. (assuming that angry ranks lower than sad)
Today i went to work, didn't register to vote, didn't educate myself on the political issues or speak up about them, paid my taxes (and complained about it without understanding where the money goes), ate a Big Mac, drank a Pepsi, watched some sitcoms and "reality" tv and helped my government and the major corporations that control it walk all over the rights of: consumers, small businesses, workers, third-world nations, and future generations.
Slashdot Mirror
When the military wants a project but doesn't want to look like they want it, the Energy Department is the place from which the government funnels the cash.
They even state in the article that there is biological warfare potential here. Of course there's also medicinal value - imagine an anti-virus virus that infects you and delivers an innoculation against a real disease. But before we get all lovey with this tech lets remember the lessons we learned from "Jurassic Park" - things will go wrong.
(Hey if you want a less pop-culture reference, look at the Manhattan project. Did you know that when they did the first test of a nuclear bomb they thought there was a small chance that the thing would start a chain reaction in the earth's atmosphere, burning the whole planet and killing all life? But they did it anyway. Good thing that didn't go wrong, but they also didn't know about how nasty radiation is and the long term affects it has - and i'm not talking about super-powered mutants here!)
Done rambling now.
101: Giant lizards are cool
Much more exciting than a blue e.
He's right, of course, but i don't think this really qualifies as something Mozilla can do that IE can't.
the AP Summary
http://salon.com/tech/wire/2002/11/01/microsoft/in dex.html
Point of special interest:
"The decision eliminates the establishment of a technical committee to assess Microsoft's compliance with the agreement. In its place, a corporate compliance committee -- consisting of Microsoft board members -- will make sure Microsoft lives up to the deal, the judge said."
Oh. My. God. No one in their right mind would agree to this settlement. Apparently CKK is taking the standard Bush policy of putting the foxes in charge of guarding the henhouse to a new low. (SEC: Harvey Pitt. EPA: Christine Whitman. Microsoft: Microsoft.)
I suspect that you and i agree substantially, but we're getting some miscommunication.
What are you advocating? Are you saying we shouldn't use our computers as multuimedia devices - that we shouldn't download and play music and movies on them? Or are you saying we should boycott the cable companies and use other services to do what we want?
If you're saying the former, then i must disagree. Why should we be content to submit to de facto limitation of our rights to discourage unfair pricing? The answer is not to simply limit your computer use - after all that's what they really want - the pricing crap is just one way they're trying to do it. (PS - I'm sure that the RIAA, MPAA, and all their friends who make licensed media playing devices would slaveringly agree that we shouldn't be using computers to play music and movies - we should buy separate expensive gadgets to do everything.)
If you're saying the latter, then i agree wholeheartedly. (The point i was making in my last post was that we should be able to boycott price-gougers without giving up broadband entirely, which is where the monopoly troubles pop up.)
There should be a competitive market for broadband service, but the FCC's designation of cable modems (etc.) as information services rather than communication services allows cable companies to set up a monopoly in areas where DSL is not available. (And btw, the cable companies' monopoly artificially inflates DSL rates as well.)
By all means - if you have other options, use them. But let's not shut people out of the internet just because they are on the short end of the FCC's ruling.
Don't be content to demonize the cable companies and stop there. Follow the trail back to the real source of the problem and do something about it. The FCC is controlled by people who care more about big business then they do about consumers. Use your vote to change that. Vote for the candidates that care more about your rights than they do about the money the cable companies throw at them. (I have definite opinions on which parties those candidates tend to come from, but i'm sure you can make up your own mind on that.)
You can stop this by killing the market: Cancel your cable TV subscription. Don't download or play music on your PC. Play DVD's with you TV. You know the drill.
So we should prevent them from overcharging us for broadband by not using our computers? They want to stop us from sharing files, so the answer is to not share files? Huh?
I agree that market pressure is the answer, but i think you need to go into a little more detail with your idea.
The real solution would be to allow a free market to sort it out, but since the FCC just handed the cable companies monopoly rights, that won't happen. Face it - this administration loves the big buck$ they get from big bu$ine$$. That's what guides nearly every decision they make. The group of people that's most likely to pay very public and melodramatic lip-service to patriotism and freedom sells our rights to the highest bidder every day.
As far as i can tell, this special paper requirement really only exists to force you to give more money to them every time you need more paper.
In essence, the paper creates an absolute "geographical" reference point for all your writing. This imaginary space is roughly the size of Europe and Asia. That's pretty big, but it is not limitless, so not only do you have to continue buying more "proprietary paper", you will eventually have to upgrade your whole pen system. Gee, i wonder if that upgrade will be free?
This whole concept is so surrealistically Rube Goldberg-ish i can hardly comprehend it. (BTW, "rube" is a synonym for "fool".)
Perhaps if they put some effort into writing coherent and interesting stories and getting good performances out of the actors then people wouldn't mind spending a few bucks to see the film. Hire real writers. Hire real directors.
LotR did it right, Episode 2 did not. People went to see LotR again and again. People went to see Episode 2 once and then told all their friends who hadn't yet seen it to wait for it on DVD. (So i guess you could say that DVD rentals are a factor - if you're a dumbass!)
They can try to blame piracy and DVDs and anything else, but the real blame is on Lucas himself and the crowd of yes-men with which he surrounds himself.
I figured i'd save the trolls some effort and do it myself.
"Or giving people on the street floppies with DeCSS "
Genius. This should be the geek activist anti-DMCA activity.
(Step 0: Educate yourself. If they're laughing at you then they're probably not listening to you.)
Step 1: Copy up a fat stack of floppies.
Step 2: Copy up a fat stack of flyers with the relevent portion of the DMCA and your favorite anti-DMCA essay. (If step 1 is too money or time-intensive for you then just put the DeCss code on the flyer - it's just as illegal.)
Step 3: (And this is crucial.) Call the local police and tell them when where what and why.
Step 4: Call the media and tell them when and where. (If you tell them what and why they won't care - it's not sexy news.)
Setp 5: Go do it. Hand out floppies and flyers. Make a show of it. Be loud and obvious but not rude or disruptive, and certainly not violent. (Don't give them any excuse to put you in jail for any reason other than violating the DMCA.)
If you want to have a group of people do this check to see if you need a permit and get it. If people try to side-track you with other issues just say, "Yes, there are a lot of problems in the world, but this is the one I'm talking about today."
It's easy to forget that a post on Slashdot is not read by 99.9999% of the people who would get some benefit from reading it. Stop preaching to the choir.
I plan on writing a letter to my State Attorney General encouraging him to pursue criminal fraud charges against Kazaa's parent company. I encourage everyone else to do the same.
That's a wildly stuipid question.
There are no stupid questions. However, there are stupid people who ask questions.
(No offense intended to the original questioner.)
To quote the previous poster, "Wa wa wawa wawawa wawa Wa Wawawa, wa wawa wawa WAWA wa wa wawa wawa. Wa wawawa wa Wa wa wa wa wawawawa wa *wawa*. Wa wa wa wawa wa wa wa wa wa wawa, wa wawawa wa wawa wa wa wawawa wawa wa wa wawa wa Wawa-wa, wawa wa Wawa wa wa." ;) Thanks, but reading about someone in the book i'm reading, who represents me reading the book is just not something i'd dig even if Tolkien did intend it that way. Tolkien told a great story but was not a great storyteller. Tom is lame - i'm glad he wasn't in the movie.
Ah - so you do have more time for these games. Great!
Wait a minute. You just said that there were judges that already expressed agreement with your position. Now you are saying this matter has not been decided in a court. Which is it?
Here is where i start doubting your mental acuity again. I said that it had not been addressed by a court that was capable of setting precedent. Until a case has been appealed to a higher court (eg appellate, or supreme court) it has no binding effect. Two local judges can decide similar cases in completely opposite ways before precedent is set, but once a higher court sets a precedent, then lower courts are expected to abide by it. You're either giving evidence of your ignorance or you're intentionally misinterpreting my statements, so which is it: are you dumb or dishonest?
The chances that you are my intellectual equal or superior are, statistically speaking, quite small.
Is that what it says on your Mensa card? To quote you: "That's just another unsubstantiated claim by you." So far, your astounding intellect has enabled you to: use a search engine, copy and paste, cling dogmatically to refuted claims, apply a separate standard to yourself than to your opponent, and to willfully and/or ignorantly misinterpret statements. Tell me again about how smart you is? What are those statistics that are so small? Oh wait - you're still in high school, aren't you? You still believe those standardized test scores mean something, don't you?
You don't seem to understand the difference between civil suits and criminal trials. The statute that I cited makes it a crime to split off cable signals without paying for them. How would the court trying you for a violation of federal law make the cable company guilty of fraud?
Right. When the cable company says, "You've been receiving these signals for the past 6 months, start paying or else," then that's attempted fraud. When they report you to the police for theft of cable in this situation (the police don't go looking for this on their own) then they are attempting to coerce you into paying for a service that they knowingly and willingly provided for free. They know that, in most cases, the consumer cannot afford to fight the fraudulent claim in court, so they use that to bully the subscriber into paying. You want an example or two?
I do understand the difference between civil and criminal cases - apparently better than you do. If these were civil complaints then it wouldn't be worth the cable companies' time and money, but since it's a criminal offense they can get the taxpayers to foot the bill for their dirty work and they can blame it on the overzealous DA/Police if they end up losing and/or catching some PR flak.
You said it was legal. I provided a statute that said otherwise. You provided your untrained, lay-person's opinion. I win. That's how such debates work.
Statute combines with judicial review to make law. Without the review all you have is a contested statute.
But if i'd only known you had declared yourself the victor i would've given up! My untrained, lay person's opinion that is based upon direct experience does trump your untrained lay-person's opinion that is based on your need to get in the final word regardless of the arguments. Sorry - you don't get to make the rules here, but hey there lil' buckaroo you're still a winner so long as you keep that positive attitude!
A "signal" and a "service", as applied to cable TV, are not the same and when you turn the former into the latter without permission, it is theft. It doesn't matter if you steal cable TV by using a splitter to get basic cable or a hacked converter box to get premium channels.
And aside from the fact that this distinction between service and signal are convenient for your argument, which bodily orifice was your source for this? The signal is the service. You cannot have one without the other. From the "definitions" section of your beloved telecom act: "the term 'cable service' means -
(A)the one-way transmission to subscribers of
(i)video programming, or
(ii)other programming service, and
(B)subscriber interaction, if any, which is required for the selection or use of such video programming or other programming service."
So what is being transmitted if it is not a signal?
But there is a big difference between a hacked converter and a splitter, as anyone with experience will tell you. The cable companies would love to go back to the good old days when they could multiply your monthly bill by the number of splitters you had, but they can't.
Maybe you should be when you don't even understand the words you are using (i.e., "receiving")
I was willing to give you this one, but since you keep harping on it... Refer back to the document's definitions section and you'll see that the term 'receive' isn't in there. If someone went before a judge with this then the definition of receive that was used - the common one (successful conveyance from point a to point b) or the more specific one (decoding into meaningful info) - would be a point of contention. So stop patting yourself on the back for your ability to use a dictionary - it's not going to slam dunk the case should it ever come up in court.
I went one step further. I called the Federal Communications Commission after my last message and was told, in no uncertain terms, that splitting off cable signals from a broadband connection in order to get basic cable at no cost was illegal. If you doubt me, call them yourself.
Good idea. What number did you call? With whom did you speak? (Are you sure it wasn't the janitor?) What was the exact wording of the question(s) you asked? (In short - yes i do doubt you.)
Want more? Here is a document [state.ma.us] from the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications & Energy which clearly supports my position and refutes yours.
That document only tangentially pertains the situations we are discussing and is not a statute or other document that is actable by law. It is merely an arbitrary rephrasing of federal law with no identifiable source or responsible authority. On top of that, it is only applicable to Massachusets, and is a brazen copy of the propaganda put out by the cable companies themselves. Summary: Some unknown state employee (was it the Attorney General or Joe Blow, the summer intern?) copied the scare-tactic propaganda put out by the cable companies to serve their own interests.
So I have now provided a clearly worded statute, the FCC's interpretation of the legality of splitting off basic cable from a broadband link, and a document from the state of Massachusetts that explains, in laymen's terms, what I've been trying to tell you all along. All that you have provided is your opinion and (mis)interpretation of the law. If you can't do better than that, let's just drop this now.
So you have now provided an (untested) statute, an unverified claim of FCC contact, and an irrelevant document. I've given you a cogent argument that you have failed to refute with direct evidence. It may be an opinion but it's of no lesser significance than your own and is based upon direct experience which you lack. There's no harm in either of us sticking with our opinions, but you're not going to convince me that you're right without real evidence - court case citations, judicial opinions, etc.
Feel free to drop it at any time. You did say you had better things to do, right? So go do them. Your feeling of moral and intellectual superiority should be enough to sustain you. Surely this isn't a matter of ego and one-upsmanship for you, right? It's not really about who gets the last word, right?
You and i are claiming two different things.
You claim that it is illegal because there is a law on the books which could be interpreted to allow you to be prosecuted for putting a splitter in your home.
I am claiming that this law is contrary to precedent and other applicable laws and is therefore inapplicable in this instance. Judges' interpretations of the law do vary, and some of them agree that it is the cable companies' responsibility to block the signals, while others may claim that consumers should refrain from using the signal which is already being piped into their home.
Until it gets taken to a court that can provide precedent, it will remain as written - an ambiguous statute. FYI: Judicial review doesn't just obliterate laws - it's not always an on/off switch - they provide guidelines for interpretation. If a court of precedent says that their failure to trap out the signal is tantamount to authorization then the law still stands as written - it's just interpreted less broadly.
(Would it help you get it if i used smaller words?)
Fraud? You contracted to get broadband Internet connectivity. You added a splitter and cable to their system to get TV without paying for it. Just how are you being defrauded?
You're not - until they ask you to pay for (or take you to court over) a service they gave you for free. It's impossible to steal something that was delivered into your home even though you didn't request it.
The cable company can block out the tv signal. If they fail to do so then they have no right to demand payment or damages.
That's like claiming that the electric company has provided you with an "unsolicited service" because you split off a power cable (to steal electricity) before it entered your electric meter.
That is such a poor analogy that it actually makes you sound like you have even less grasp of the topic. In hooking up a tv to a cable line, you are splitting the signal after it has come through the "meter". The cable company knows exactly what is coming in to your house - as long as it doesn't affect others they have no right to tell you what to do with it, just like the electric company cannot tell you what you can or cannot plug into the outlets in your house.
All you know is what they chose to prosecute.
And all you know is what you choose to blindly cling to. I know what they chose to prosecute and i know why. My opinion is based upon direct experience with the companies and systems involved.
You don't even know of a single case where your opinion was backed-up. You haven't provided any supporting evidence beyond the statute itself, which we have already agreed is open to interpretation.
I have no more time for your semantics games
I'm not the one whipping out the dictionary, but i doubt that you have anything better to do than argue semantics when you're talking out of your ass on a subject where you have neither experience nor evidence.
Merely citing a statute proves nothing.
By the wording of this statute, the cable installers are guilty if they fail to put filters on. They have assisted in the receiving of an unauthorized communications service offered over a cable system - unless of course as representatives of the cable operator they are thereby authorizing you to view those channels! For that matter, anyone with a cable modem and no cable tv service is automatically guilty. They are receiving the signal even if they do nothing with it!
You say it's illegal because this law says so. I tell you that it's legal because of precedent, property law, and anti-fraud statutes. You and i (great legal scholars that we are) can argue until we're dead, but that won't do anything except provide amusement for us.
Hey - since you like quoting the statutes:
TITLE 47, CHAPTER 5, SUBCHAPTER V-A, Part IV, Sec. 558.
Nothing in this subchapter shall be deemed to affect the criminal or civil liability of cable programmers or cable operators pursuant to the Federal, State, or local law of libel, slander, obscenity, incitement, invasions of privacy, false or misleading advertising, or other similar laws, except that cable operators shall not incur any such liability for any program carried on any channel designated for public, educational, governmental use or on any other channel obtained under section 532 of this title or under similar arrangements unless the program involves obscene material.
Translation: This statute doesn't let them get away with anything that normal businesses can't get away with - like charging for unsolicited service!
You said "Tell that to the judge" and that's exactly what has to happen. Noone has been willing to put this statute to the test for cases like these, so the overly-broad law that really doesn't apply to the situation at hand is still on the books. One judge throws out the cable companies' claims and the other summarily says guilty, but noone is appealing this to the level where precedent gets set and real decisions are made because it's not worth the money it would cost to fight it for any of the parties involved.
Disagree all you want, but trying to hide behind a long copy-and-paste is bullshit. I do know what the cable company i worked for could or could not pursue as cable theft. You say there are documented court cases where it's been established that the cable company can tell me what to do with the wiring inside my house? Prove it. Cite one - link to one reference. I've searched for them and i can't find any. Who's bullshitting now? Again i ask what your qualifications are for the opinion you've offered.
It's their cable system and you don't have a legal right to add splitters and cables to it so that you can get TV signals that you don't pay for.
;)
It's their system until it enters my house. Once it's inside, i can do whatever i want with it. I worked for the cable company and shut off cable theft on a daily basis - i know the distinction for fact. If i make no modifications outside my home i can do whatever i want unless my tampering involves stolen property or causes signal leakage that could interfere with airline radio frequencies (the fcc and faa mandate that).
History lesson: When cable tv first appeared, the cable companies would charge you a monthly fee for each tv in your house that had cable service. They would also prosecute people who added their own splitters, etc. Numerous court cases were decided in favor of the customer, establishing their ownership and discretionary use of the internal wiring of their house. The cable companies were forced to stop charging per set and the basic price was increased to account for this. Cable companies now charge to activate an outlet if they actually come in and wire it up, but not a monthly usage fee per outlet.
The cable company did not send you an unsolicited product. You tapped into their cable and stole it.
Tapping in to their cable would involve opening up their pedestal or climbing up the pole and attaching my own line to their feed. That would be theft, but they have no more right to tell you what to do with the coaxial cables inside your house than your neighbor has asking you to not enjoy the scents his flowers produce when they waft in through your window. They control what signal comes to you. They dropped a line from the main feed down to your residence. If they want to block out the tv signal on that line then they can. If they choose not to then it's an unsolicited product.
When the cable guy left after installing your cable modem, did you magically have basic cable on your TV? No. You hooked up additional splitters and/or cables in order to steal the signal.
Tinkering with the wiring in my house is my right, so long as it does not endanger others. My house, my wiring, my splitter, my tv, my right. This has been established by precedent and is a trivial conclusion in our system of property law.
Ethical and legal problems are different. Legally, it is theft. Ask any competent attorney and he'll verify that.
If you can adequately explain to him the concept of ethics, then he will agree that law and ethics are different - and he'll be glad he only has to deal with the legal side.
The competent attorney will, however tell you that legally, what you do with the wiring in your house is up to you. (Competence is not measured by the degree to which a person does or does not agree with you unless you happen to be right. I speak from direct experience with the inner workings of a cable company, who have a vested interest in knowing and briefing their employees on what is and is not cable theft - what is the basis for your opinion?)
...
If you answered yes to any of the above, your theft of the cable service is depriving someone of income. To me, that's an ethical problem.
You are correct about the ethical questions, but assuming you were happy with your tv reception before and were not considering making any changes, using the cable signal provided causes neither ethical nor legal concern.
If you are using the free cable as a substitute for other services, then you are depriving others of income and you do have an ethical obligation. You should pay for and use whatever service you would otherwise want.
The cable company also has an obligation. They should filter out the cable tv signals so that unscrupulous individuals don't deny others of business. But they don't always do that - here's why:
1) Cable guy installs modem and leaves off the filters for the tv, providing free basic cable tv.
2) Cable customer service rep calls a few days/weeks later and offers free or deeply discounted trial of premium services, knowing that the customer is already getting the free services.
3) When the trial period is up, either the customer keeps all/some of the services or cancels them assuming he'll get the same service he started with.
4) If they're cancelled then the tech comes out and puts all the filters on, depriving the customer of the free service.
5) Often this prompts the customer to sign up for the previously free services.
Now the cable company has probably signed up a customer for more paid services, but at the very least they have deprived a competitor of a few months' revenue. It costs the company nothing to provide the free cable tv along with the modem service, so if it prevents a competitor from making a buck, it's worth it to them! (Note that it actually costs less to provide the free service than to block it out - filters have a price.)
Who's screwing who is not always as it appears at first.
BZFlag!!! It's a free, low-violence fps-style tank game with strategy!
Legally and ethically, you have no obligation to not hook up your tv if you subscribe only to cable modem service. (Note that none of this applies to digital services.)
If a con man sends me an unsolicited product i am not required to pay for it or give it back. This is the same thing.
You asked for cable modem service and got cable tv service delivered on top of it. The signal is already coming to your house, so it is essentially wasted if it does not go to your tv. If you are paying for everything you asked for and are not depriving anyone else of service, or quality of service, where's the ethical problem? (If they say your splitter affects others' service, then they're lying.)
If they weant the $2 (my local cost) that they charge for basic cable on top of modem service then they can block out the tv channel at the tap until you subscribe. If they choose not to, that's their problem.
IUTBACG (i used to be a cable guy) so believe me when i tell you that all the crap in the article about tap audits(1) and degrading your service through splitters(2) is crap.
(1) A tap audit looks at the place where your individual line is connected to the main feed and maybe at the place where the line enters the house. If some joker pried open the box or climbed the pole and spliced-in his own line, removed some channel-blocking traps, or added some black-market channel-adding traps they can tell. They cannot (legally) tell how many splitters you have in your basement, nor is it any of their business. After the signal is in your house, you can do whatever you want with it (copyright restriction, etc. taken into account) - hook it up to one and only one tv, split it a milion ways, or leave it dangling unconnected if you want to! That's been decided in court and that's why they can charge you for installing new outlets, but not for service to multiple TV sets.
Oh, and BTW tap audits are pretty rare unless they've previosuly caught you or one of your neighbors being naughty, but YMMV.
(2)If a two-way splitter would degrade your service to an unacceptable level then it was probably already intermittantly shitty. (But don't get me started on morons who want to have crystal-clear reception on 6 TVs with a $2 splitter from Radio Shack - there is a limit to how much you can split a signal. The cable company is not responsible for fixing your mess - just their own.)
It is unlikely that your modem would work fine before you put the splitter in and not work afterwards, but if that's the case then that's your problem. Still, there's no harm nor foul in testing it out.
Slashdot the site by making the link out of the "nude doctored photos" part of the text. I wonder if MS submitted the story that way to ensure that no one who doesn't already hate MS sees the site?
I can't figure out if the desire to trash MS will win out over the anti-DMCA urge. It'll be interesting to see which way the knee-jerks go with this one.
Use the brain that theoretically sits inside your head.
Parse it out. In the sentence, Quake comes before BZ and checkers comes before chess. Ergo Quake = Checkers, BZ = Chess.
In the analogy itself i'm using both style and complexity. Solid Gold Checkers (Quake) is impressive looking and can be fun to play, but while a simple chess set (BZ) may not be a whiz-bang design (Zen perfection aside), the actual game has more depth.
I agree for the most part, but without jumping BZ loses a lot of strategy and skill.
3 shots with jumping on makes for great play. The good players learn fast that jumping should only be used for positioning or as a last resort. The first two shots are really just feelers - will they jump or dodge? If they jump then you own them with a well-timed 3rd shot. If they dodge then the fun really begins - try and hit them with the 3rd or save it in case they come for you?
Plus there's the thrill of a well-executed turning jump that saves your bacon and puts you right in line for a shot (it's a sweet, sweet thing), not to mention the dramatic dog-fight when two tanks go head-to-head, each jumping and turning in the air like Neo and Elrond as they pass.
Without jumping the game's a pretty conventional tank game with mediocre graphics. With jumping, good and bad flags, and limited shots you can enjoy a 1-on-1 game as much as a free-for-all.
(IMO Quake is good for action, but comparing it to BZ is like comparing solid gold checkers to an old wooden chess set.)
The analysis of Cloaking is missing one crucial bit of info: cloaked tanks are immune to Lasers. (Makes perfect sense, but most developers would've missed that.)
Cloaking is of limited use otherwise - skilled players use the radar at least as much as the viewscreen, if not more.
BTW, my favorite config: all good flags, all bad flags (15 seconds or 1 kill), 3 shots, jumping. (The fewer shots you have the more the strategery of the game shines through. BZ can't compare to Quake for adrenaline-pumping click-festiness, but the cat and mouse of stealth vs. gm can't be matched by Quake.)
When you've got 5 friends teamed-up against you and you just need a few more kills to get your score to 100: 5000 Grudes. (+1000 more if they're in the same computer lab and you can taunt them while you frag them.)
When you've logged on to a server and you watch time after time as your bullets pass right through the other tank(s) due to lag or hacked clients: -2000 Grudes. (assuming that angry ranks lower than sad)
Today i went to work, didn't register to vote, didn't educate myself on the political issues or speak up about them, paid my taxes (and complained about it without understanding where the money goes), ate a Big Mac, drank a Pepsi, watched some sitcoms and "reality" tv and helped my government and the major corporations that control it walk all over the rights of: consumers, small businesses, workers, third-world nations, and future generations.